My Old Diamond Backs

Hello everyone. I'm new here but do love retro mountain bikes . I have a mix of old bikes and new but the build quality of the old bikes appears superior to anything new. I wonder how many of the current modern machines will still be around in 30 years?

I have today taken my rebuilt 1991 Diamond Back Ascent EX with an XL frame and full Deore LX groupset throughout out for a spin around Sutton Park in the West Midlands. It was perfect and didn't miss a beat. Here's some pictures if anyone's interested in seeing one again (you don't see many these days). It's almost 100% original other than new seat post, saddle and Panaracer tyres. I do have the original components though.

I also have a rebuilt 1992 Diamond Back Axis with an XL frame again with full XT groupset throughout and almost original. Just changed the saddle to a NOS Avocet Gelflex and the tyres are new Panaracer's, everything else though is original and I have kept the original components too. I'll add some pictures of that too. You don't see many of these either.

Thumbs UP!
I'm a big fan of the early 90's Diamondback's. There was something about them that really appeals. Cool paintwork & rugged build.
Both are great examples. I had a 92 Apex bitd & have owned a few since. Thanks for sharing.

Nice

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Welcome to the forum. Very nice bikes, glad I'm not the only one who likes these DMB. I just picked up this 18" Assent EX Special edition this fall at a flea market, woman was only asking 20$! The only problem I found was one bad tube. 1st pic was it off my truck the day I got it, every thing was original including the pie plate and reflectors. Swapped a few parts with some stuff I had sitting around. Think it might become my town bike since its a perfect fit and rides great.

I think its a 92, I had tracked down the catalog, I'll see if I can find it.

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Really nice bikes..

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Venturestein":1xc1eeo6 said:

Welcome to the forum. Very nice bikes, glad I'm not the only one who likes these DMB. I just picked up this 18" Assent EX Special edition this fall at a flea market, woman was only asking 20$! The only problem I found was one bad tube. 1st pic was it off my truck the day I got it, every thing was original including the pie plate and reflectors. Swapped a few parts with some stuff I had sitting around. Think it might become my town bike since its a perfect fit and rides great.

I think its a 92, I had tracked down the catalog, I'll see if I can find it.

Click to expand...

Blimey Venturestein, it looks like you and I were rebuilding the same Ascent EX bike at the same time, some 27 years after they were made! How strange. Your rebuild looks amazing, that could pass as a much more modern bike, not something from the early 90s. It's aged amazingly well. I only picked up mine in December '18 too. Even more spooky, yours and mine looked in exactly the same condition with the original Tioga Mud Dawg tyres too by the looks of it. :shock: Here's what mine looked like:

I love your pie plate description never heard that before.

I managed to find this model Ascent EX within the Retrobike catalogues. This model appears in both the '91 and '92 catalogue. It looks a bit out of place in the '92 catalogue as they changed the decals to the newer type as per my '92 Axis. I wonder if they didn't sell them all in '91 so continued to sell the stock in '92? Who knows. Someone on this forum posted an original red '91 Apex they picked up not so long ago and it looks gorgeous. Not sure if you've seen that but worth a look.

Of all my bikes I currently own or have owned, my Axis is one of the best riding bikes of all, there's just something about it. I'd love to see some more 90's DBs on here so let's hope some more pictures turn up.

Cheers.

That's pretty far out, TBH mine was hardly even rebuilt, just cleaned and tuned up a bit, it was still shifting decent when I got it I think someone bought it and used it to ride around the neighborhood once and a while, it was just dirt and grime, hardly a scratch. Just happened to have a NOS 27.0 Kore post in my parts bin, had it forever, no idea why I had bought it, lol. Even had some cheap matching Kore skewers. I just need to change the grips, the original ones are a bit sticky.

Yours looks amazingly clean, like you can eat of it clean! Love the pedal treatment as well, nice touch.

Just looked at the catalogs, my 91 catalog is so lo-res I could hardly make out it was the same bike, and the font change in the 92 catalog is pretty obvious now that you pointed it out, so yea your probably right, they had old stock and pushed it out as a "special edition".

Oh and pie-plate was what my friends called it back in the day, when you pulled up to the trail with you new bike all decked out with factory reflectors and guards, you would defiantly get heckled a bit.

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I've heard it called a "Dork Disk" too